For Farm & Factory

At Dearborn, Mich, last week Henry Ford, Irenee du Pont, Francis Patrick Garvan and 200 tycoons, farmers' spokesmen, chemists, propagandists and journalists assembled for a big charade. Mr. Garvan, president of the Chemical Foundation, led the enthusiasts into Mr. Ford's reproduction of Philadelphia's Independence Hall. There, on a table from Abraham Lincoln's law office and after the Fordson High School band played "Stars & Stripes Forever" and Handel's "Largo," Mr. Garvan solemnly wrote his name at the end of a lengthy Declaration of Dependence Upon the Soil and of the Right of Self-Maintenance.

The Declaration: "When in the course of the life of a nation, its people become neglectful of the laws of nature and of nature's God, so that their very existence is put in peril, necessity impels them to turn to the soil in order to recover the right of self-maintenance. . .

"Through the timely unfolding of nature's laws, modern science has placed new tools in the hands of man which enable a variety of surplus products of the soil to be transformed through organic chemistry into raw materials usable in industry. . . . It is nature's plan. . . . It demands no appropriations from the public treasury. . . . It depends upon individual initiative and sweat of the brow."

Signing. Mr. Garvan, dipping a pen with a big spotted feather attached into a 15-c- bottle of ink, signed. The Fordson High School band played "My Country Tis of Thee." Rev. Hedly G. Stacey of Dearborn pronounced a benediction. And the 200 tycoons, farmers' spokesmen, chemists, propagandists and journalists squiggled their names below Mr. Garvan's. When they all had signed and the Fordson High School band had saluted their gesture with the "New World" symphony, "Coronation Banner" and "The Star Spangled Banner," two expected names were lacking. Henry Ford and Irenee du Pont, after lunching with the propagandists, had decamped for an isolated afternoon together.

Purpose of the meeting of tycoons, farmers' spokesmen, chemists, propagandists and journalists was to wave the U. S. flag, kick the New Deal, boost the Liberty League, damn bankers, irritate the petroleum industry and, most sincerely, to help the U. S. farmer earn a living by showing him and the rest of the nation how chemistry can turn farm products to industrial account.

As sign and covenant that chemistry will do this, Dearborn conferees last week pointed to the following actual accomplishments :

Soy Beans. The soy bean, seed of an Asiatic herb, is the main crop of Manchuria, a staple food for Chinese and Japanese. In the U. S. some 3,000,000 acres were planted to soy beans last year. Most of the U. S. crop goes into forage. But some is made into sauce for chop suey, some into cooking oil, some into bread for diabetics. Henry Ford's chemist, R. H. McCarroll, foreseeing industrial uses of soy beans, got Mr. Ford to plant 10,000 acres to soy beans last year, 30,000 this year. From soy bean oil Mr. McCarroll's assistants make lacquer for Ford motor cars. They claim that soy bean lacquer is better than du Font's Duco. From meal which remains after oil is extracted from soy beans, Ford chemists make plastic parts for car bodies. Chemists are now working on bodies made of laminated sheet steel and soy bean plastic. All the equipment needed to process soy beans at a profit fits into an ordinary barn. At the Century of Progress last year the Ford Co. exhibited a barn so outfitted. A similar example was to be seen at Dearborn last week.

Tung Trees, also an importation from China, bear nuts. About 30,000 U. S. acres, chiefly in Florida, are planted to tung trees. B. F. Williamson of Gainesville, Fla., told the Dearborn meeting that an acre of tung trees produces four times as much oil as an acre of flax, and that tung oil is preferable to linseed oil in paints and varnishes. Half of the linseed oil which the U. S. requires is imported. Merely to replace that imported linseed oil would require 3,000,000 acres devoted to flax, or 750,000 acres of tung groves, calculated Mr. Williamson. He preferred tung trees because forage crops can be grown between the trees. A machine to shell the nuts and a press to extract the oil are all that a tung grower needs to make his crop ready for market.

Slash Pine. Dr. Charles Holmes Herty of Savannah has fostered paper making in the cut-over pine lands and swamps of the South. So-called slash pine can be harvested when five years old and economically manufactured into coarse paper (wrapping paper, newspaper). Owners of large acreage may harvest a fifth of their crop yearly, replant the cut-over area, and have a continuing cycle of growths. Main trouble of Dr. Herty's project is that papermaking mills cost millions, which are now hard to raise.

Jerusalem Artichokes are sunflowers which have a starchy, tuberous root. They flourish in semi-arid regions. Like yams in Southern States, corn in Prairie States, barley in Northern States, potatoes in Idaho and Maine, sugar beets in the West, sorghum in the South, sugar cane in Louisiana, Jerusalem artichokes can be turned into alcohol. If produced on a large scale such alcohol could be produced for from 7 to 10-c- a gallon, figured Dr. Leo Martin Christensen of Iowa State College. At that price it is cheap enough to mix with gasoline as a motor fuel, especially if any need occurs to conserve U. S. fuel supplies. But to build the requisite huge farm distilleries requires considerable capital, probably Government aid, and therefore seems not wise at present.

Alcohol v. Gasoline. Two years ago the U. S. Bureau of Standards and the American Automobile Association conducted road tests to learn how blended alcohol and gasoline worked in motors. The decision was that alcohol-gasoline blends were less satisfactory and more expensive than pure gasoline with prices as they were. Nonetheless, farmers desperate for earnings have pushed laws to require mixtures of the two fuels. Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota and California have been lined up. The policy is to compel the use of home-produced alcohol in the blend or to forego taxes on alcohol used in motors. To head off such trends, President Axtell J. Byles of the American Petroleum Institute last week offered to put up $15,000, if President Garvan of the Chemical Foundation also put up $15,000, for a second impartial investigation of the value of alcohol-gasoline blends. Mr. Garvan last week declined to match Mr. Byles.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.